When you are the leading content management system in the world and the online publishing platform of choice for millions of websites and loved by thousands of website developers and website designers, it’s inevitable that at some point in time, WordPress will become a target for attacks from hackers.

In early 2013 a global brute force attack began hitting WordPress installations across almost every WP hosting server in existence around the world.

These attacks were caused by botnets (networks of infected computers programmed to attack other sites with security vulnerabilities).

How To Protect Your WordPress Site From A Brute-Force Attack

What Is A Brute Force Attack?

A brute-force attack is a technique used to break an encryption or authentication system by trying all possibilities.

(Source: Chinese University Of Hong Kong)

There are many methods hackers use to try and break into a WordPress site. One of these is by trying to guess the site admin’s login username and password. This is achieved using software tools that automatically tries to guess hundreds of login permutations in minutes.

If you’re using obvious usernames and weak passwords that are easy to guess, your site could be an easy target for hackers.

This is called a “brute-force” login attack.

Botnets – What Are They?

A botnet is a number of Internet-connected computers communicating with other similar machines in an effort to complete repetitive tasks and objectives. This can be as mundane as keeping control of an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel, or it could be used to send spam email or participate in distributed denial-of-service attacks. The word botnet is a combination of the words robot and network.

(Source: Wikipedia)

A “Botnet” is a network of private computers that have been compromised and infected with malicious code, which can then be controlled remotely as a group, typically without the computer owners’ knowledge.

Botnets are regularly used to blast out mass spam emails.

The screenshot below was taken from a site that monitors online security showing the locations of the command centers of ZeuS – a botnet that has been actively compromising computer networks all around the world since 2009 …

(ZeuS is a botnet that has been actively compromising computer networks all around the globe since 2009. Screenshot image: SecureList.com)

These botnet attacks on WordPress were well organized and highly distributed. Over 90,000 IP addresses were identified by a number of webhosting companies in the initial attack alone, when millions of attempts to force their way into WordPress site administration areas occurred. The attack then continued, with over 30,000 WordPress blogs being hacked each day.

Coverage of this worldwide brute-force attack was reported by all the major webhosting companies, as well as the leading technology publications, such as Forbes, TechNews Daily, Tech Crunch, BBC News, PC Magazine, and even on the official US Department of Homeland Security website …

(Powering millions of sites around the world makes WordPress an obvious target for attacks by malicious users)

Does This Mean WordPress Is Not Secure And We Should Stop Using It?

No. In fact, there are many great reasons why you should use WordPress if you are concerned about the security of your online presence.

To learn why WordPress is a secure platform for websites, see this article: Can You Build A Secure Business Online Using WordPress?

It’s important to note that, in the case of the brute-force botnet attack described above, no specific WordPress vulnerability was being exploited (the same script was also attacking sites built using other platforms like Joomla).

Mike Little, one of the co-founders of WordPress, said this about the brute force attacks:

It is a “simple” script that attempts to login using the admin login and a generated password. So if your password is too short or based on dictionary words it will be guessed and then the script can login legitimately and do whatever it wants including installing scripts (as plugins) or editing files. The attack tries to guess your password, if it succeeds, the most secure site in the world is wide open because they have your password.

(MikeLittle.org)

Protecting Your WordPress Website From Being Brute Force Attacked – 10 Security Checks

Every website or blog with a security vulnerability can be seen as an opportunity to hackers. No blog Large, medium and small business websites, personal blogs, government web sites … even web sites owned by web security experts can and have been targeted.

If someone can discover a vulnerability in your security that allows them to gain remote access and control of your site, the website or blog can then be used as part of a larger network of “bots” to target larger and more valuable web sites.

Additional undesirable results of having your site hacked include getting blacklisted by search engines, having spammy links advertising things like online meds, cheap offers on brand names, etc. in your content and page title and descriptions, malicious redirects to phishing sites and other websites, drive-by downloads (adding malicious scripts on your visitors’ computers), and many other nasties.

The truth is that software-driven bots are probably looking for exploits and trying to break into your web site at this very moment. Whether they can be successful or not, will depend on how difficult or easy you can make it for hackers to keep persisting until they discover a way to break in, or give up and go look for a more vulnerable target.

How Much Information Are You Broadcasting To Hackers About Your WordPress Site?

If you visit Hackertarget.com and run your site through their WordPress security scan …

(Hackertarget – WordPress Security Scan Image source: Hackertarget.com)

You will see that the test will return various results and information about your site …

(website security scan results. Screenshot source: Hackertarget.com)

It should be obvious after using the tool shown above that if you can see all of this information, then hackers can too.

(Source: Blog Defender)

The ability to see which version of WordPress you are using, which plugins and themes you have installed, and which files have been uploaded to certain directories on your server can be valuable information to hackers, as this can inform them about potentially exploitable security weaknesses, especially in older versions.

If your website is driven by WordPress and you’re not proactive steps to toughen up your site, it’s practically guaranteed that, at some time in the near future, someone will attempt to hack your installation, because these brute force attacks are systematically targeting WordPress installations around the world!

When a website or blog is compromised, webmasters will find themselves “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their content has been interfered with or even entirely wiped out. Typically, compromised sites will become infected with malicious software without the owner even being aware that a security breach has happened.

To avoid the heartache (and significant loss of valuable business data) of discovering that your web site has been hacked into, below are ten simple, yet essential and effective security checks that will help to prevent your WordPress site from being brute-force attacked.

Note: A few of the steps listed below need some technical skills to modify core WordPress and/or server files. If you are not technical-minded, or don’t want to mess around with code on your site, then ask your web host or search for a professional WordPress technical provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

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Security Measure #1 – Get In Touch With Your Webhosting Service

Get in touch with your host and ask them exactly what precautions are in place to protect your site from being attacked, and what they do to make sure that your server files and data get backed up.

It is important to check that your hosting company regularly backs up your sites and that, if anything should happen, you can quickly and easily get back your files and data.

Security Measure #2 – Perform Complete WordPress Backups And Keep Your Site Regularly Up-To-Date

You should never rely on your hosting service provider for site backups. Instead, learn how to maintain your WordPress site or pay someone to get this done for you and develop a habit of performing a full WordPress site maintenance routine frequently (e.g. weekly, fortnightly, etc …)

A full WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

• All unnecessary files and data are removed,
• All files and data are free of errors, optimized and backed up,
• All WP plugins, themes and software components are up-to-date,
• etc …

A complete WP maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WordPress site regularly backed up and updated is vitally important for WordPress security. Source: WPTrainMe.com)

Again, we cannot stress enough how important it is to maintain your WordPress website or blog regularly backed up and updated. WordPress maintenance is not hard to do or time-consuming, but it must be done to ensure the security of your website or blog. If you do not want to learn how to do WordPress maintenance yourself, get someone else to do it but make sure this gets done. Backing up your site is the next most important thing you should do after making sure that you are still breathing!

If you don’t want to back up your files manually, there are a number of plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here: Backup, Duplicate & Protect Your WordPress Website With Backup Creator WordPress Plugin

Security Measure #3 – Do Not Use “Admin” As Your Admin Username

The large scale brute-force botnet attack on WordPress is mostly attempting to compromise website administrator panels by exploiting sites that used “admin” as the username.

For website security reasons, avoid setting up sites with the username “admin”. This is the first thing hackers will test. If your blog’s username is “admin”, you need to change this immediately.

We have created a simple tutorial for non-technical admin users that shows you how to change your login username here: How To Change Your Admin User Name In WordPress

Security Measure #4 – Your Password

A “brute force” attack occurs when a malicious script continually and persistently tries to guess the right combination of username and password characters that will give the hacker access to your site.

Unless you put some measure in place to stop the brute-force attack from happening (see further below for a couple of simple and effective ways to do this), the “bot” will just continue attacking your site until it eventually “cracks” the code.

Passwords that are easy to guess, therefore, are very easy targets for brute-force attacks. Make sure that you change your password to a string that contains at least 8 or 9 characters long, with upper and lowercase letters, and “special” characters (^%$#&@*).

If you have trouble coming up with strong passwords or are reluctant to set up different passwords for all your online logins, then use a password software tool like Roboform …

(Roboform is a password management software that lets you easily create very secure passwords)

For a simple step-by-step tutorial created especially for WP admin users that shows you how to change your admin password, go here: Changing Your WordPress Password

Security Measure #5 – Secure Your WP Config File

The wp-config.php file allows WordPress to communicate with the database to store and retrieve data and is used to define advanced WordPress options.

(WordPress WP Config file)

If hackers break into your site, they will search for the wp-config.php file, because this is the file that contains important information about your site’s database, security keys, etc. Getting access to this information would allow them to change anything in your database, create a user account, upload files and take control of your site.

In order to protect your WordPress site from attacks and even being used as part of a bot net, therefore, prevent your wp-config.php file from being easily accessed. This requires knowing how to edit database information, move files around in your server and changing access permissions.

Security Measure #6 – Delete Or Rename Unnecessary Installation Files

Delete or rename the install.php, upgrade.php and readme.html files from your server.

These files are not required after installation. If you don’t want to delete these files, then just rename them.

Security Measure #7 – Upgrade Your WordPress CMS, Plugins And Themes To Their Latest Version

Hackers are always on the lookout for vulnerabilities they can exploit in previous WordPress versions, including outdated versions of themes and plugins.

Make sure to always keep all of your installation files, plugins, themes, etc. up-to-date.

Security Measure #8 – Disable The Theme Editor

WordPress comes with a built-in editor feature that lets the site administrator edit theme and plugin code inside the dashboard.

You can access the WordPress Theme Editor by selecting Appearance > Editor in the dashboard menu …

(The WordPress theme editor can be accessed via the WordPress main menu)

The WordPress theme editor lets anyone accessing your site’s admin view and change your WordPress theme files, or cause havoc on your site.

If you want to prevent people from being able to access your WordPress Theme editor, you will need to disable it. This can be done by editing your wp-config.php file.

Security Measure #9 – Prevent Access To The Site’s Uploads Folder

The “uploads” folder contains all the media that gets uploaded to your blog.

Normally, this folder is visible to all users online. All a person needs to do to view all of the contents in the “uploads” directory is visit the directory using their browser …

(WordPress uploads directory)

If any files stored in his folder have weaknesses or vulnerabilities that can be exploited by malicious users, anyone can upload unauthorized file types to your site.

Protecting your directories will prevent online users from accessing your ‘uploads’ folder and other important directories. This can be done using plugins, setting file permissions, adding a blank index.php file (this is literally a file with nothing in it called “index.php”) to your uploads directory, and so on. Again, it’s best to seek professional help if you are not sure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – WordPress Security Plugins

There are a number of WordPress security plugins available that specifically address common security issues faced by WordPress site owners, such as preventing unauthorized users from accessing your site, protecting your files from malicious exploits, preventing unauthorized file uploads, etc.

Most WordPress plugins address some but not all areas of WordPress security. One security plugin that seems to do a comprehensive job of scanning, fixing and preventing potential issues that could lead to hackers accessing your files and causing damage to your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – total security plugin for WordPress)

SecureScanPro is easy to install and easy to use, and takes care of most of the security issues that WordPress users need to address.

Another security plugin you may want to look at using is BlogDefender.

Blog Defender Security Solution For WordPress Sites

(Blog Defender)

This product is a suite of WordPress security video tutorials, plugins and tools, plus a WordPress security PDF/DOC file.

BlogDefender scans you web site for potential security vulnerabilities …

And then shows you how to fix these quickly and easily …

If you don’t want to purchase a premium security plugin like SecureScanPro or BlogDefender, then use various free WordPress plugins, such as Limit Login Attempts …

WordPress is a secure web platform, but neglecting essential maintenance tasks like keeping your WordPress installation, WordPress plugins and WP themes updated to their latest versions, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can expose your site to malicious by hackers and bots.

Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot ignore the importance of website security.

As a final reminder, below is the advice given by a security expert to all WordPress users after the global brute force attacks on WordPress in 2013 …

Owners of websites based on WordPress CMS must improve at least basic security settings and implement best practices such as the use of robust passwords and the accurate management of “admin” accounts.

Pierluigi Paganini, Chief Information Security Officer, Security Affairs

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As you can see, website security is very important if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the above information has provided you with the initial guidelines and direction you need to keep your WordPress site protected from brute-force attacks. If you need any further help or assistance with WordPress security, please seek help from a WordPress security specialist, or search for a WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

Also, don’t forget to subscribe to WPCompendium.org to receive notifications via email whenever we publish new articles and tutorials on WordPress security and tutorials about WordPress security plugins and solutions.

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